Charleston & W.C. Ry. Co. v. Anchors
| Decision Date | 15 January 1912 |
| Docket Number | 3,479. |
| Citation | 73 S.E. 551,10 Ga.App. 322 |
| Parties | CHARLESTON & W. C. RY. CO. v. ANCHORS. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
Before the act of Congress of April 22, 1908 (35 Stat. 65, c. 149 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1909, p. 1171]), known as the "Federal Employers Liability Act," applies to an action for damages brought against a railroad company by one of its employés for injuries received in the service of the company, it must appear (1) that the railroad company is an interstate carrier; (2) that, as to the transaction through which the injury occurred, it was at the time engaged in interstate commerce; and (3) that the injured employé was at the time engaged in interstate commerce.
Where the foreman of a gang of railroad track hands is injured by being struck in the eye by a particle of iron put in flight by the negligent stroke of a hammer in the hands of one of the men working under him, and it appears that the business on hand at the time of the injury was the taking up and relaying of one of the rails of the track, it is held that the parties were not engaged in interstate commerce, notwithstanding that the track in question may have been devoted to the passage of interstate as well as intrastate trains, and notwithstanding that the railroad in a general sense may have been an interstate carrier. To such a transaction the federal statute does not apply.
Error from City Court of Richmond County; W. F. Eve, Judge.
Action by J. B. Anchors against the Charleston & Western Carolina Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Reversed.
W. K Miller, for plaintiff in error.
Wm. H Fleming, for defendant in error.
POWELL J. (after stating the facts as above).
The sole question involved is whether the act of Congress of April 22, 1908, known as the "Federal Employers Liability Act" (35 Stat. 65, c. 149 [U. S. Comp. St Supp. 1909, p. 1171]), applies to this transaction. That statute, by its terms, relates only to liability of common carriers by railroad "while engaged in commerce between any of the several states" to persons "while employed by such carrier in such commerce." It will be called to mind that the prior act of Congress on the same subject (Act June 11, 1906, c. 3073, 34 Stat. 232 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1909, p. 1148]) was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United states in Howard v. Illinois Central R. Co., 207 U.S. 463, 28 S.Ct. 141, 52 L.Ed. 297, on the ground that it applied to all carriers who were generally engaged in interstate commerce as to all employés, whether the carrier and the employé were at the time of the injury actually engaged with commerce of that character or not. The present law was enacted with its limitations, with the special object in view of cutting out the constitutional objections for which the prior law had been declared invalid. The present law emphasizes three things, which must concur before its provisions are applicable: (1) The railroad company in question must engage in interstate commerce; (2) it must at the time of the injury in question be engaging in that character of commerce, as contradistinguished from such purely local matters as it may also engage in; (3) the injured servant must also at the time of receiving his injury be engaging in interstate commerce. That the carrier in this case was generally engaged in interstate commerce is not in question. The remaining questions are whether, at the time the injury complained of was received, it was engaging in interstate commerce, and whether the injured employé was engaging in that character of commerce at that time. To narrow the point a little more, the concrete question is whether the work of repairing a defective rail in a track over which a railroad company carries on its transportation, both local and interstate, is of itself an act of engaging in interstate commerce.
It is very difficult to impose the limitations of a definition upon the word "commerce" as used in the federal Constitution. How this term, which originally was considered as almost synonymous in meaning with the word "trade," has been enlarged so as to include contracts, transportation, ways, means, and agencies, and even instrumentalities by which commercial intercommunications are carried on, is a matter of legal history. Still, with all of its enlargement of meaning, the word "commerce" has its limitations, and there are some things which, though touching the field of commercial operation, do not enter into it in such a way as to become of themselves a part of the commerce. The insuring of articles intended for interstate transportation is a matter which touches interstate commerce, but is not "commerce" within the purview of the Constitution. Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 19 L.Ed. 357; Hooper v. California, 155 U.S. 648, 15 S.Ct. 207, 39 L.Ed. 297; Nutting v. Massachusetts, 183 U.S. 553, 22 S.Ct. 238, 46 L.Ed. 324. To manufacture goods with the intention of devoting them to interstate commerce is not interstate commerce. U.S. v. Knight, 156 U.S. 1, 15 S.Ct. 249, 39 L.Ed. 325. In the case of Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U.S. 1, 9 S.Ct. 6, 32 L.Ed. 346, in which it is held that a state may prohibit the manufacture of intoxicating liquors within its borders, notwithstanding that the manufacturer intends to use the liquors when manufactured only for exportation beyond the borders of the state, the court, speaking through Mr. Justice Lamar, draws the distinction between "manufacture" and "commerce" thus:
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